Break A Leg
by London1
Summary: A vignette. How Ginger died.


Break A Leg

A Vignette

By London

Disclaimer: Beetlejuice and co is owned by Warner Bros.

Note: This torture #10 from The Obituaries: A Beetlejuice Archive

Ginger gave a disheartened sigh as she left the latest dance audition at the Naked Lion Nightclub. She scurried down the dark road until she came across a lone street light that illuminated part of the street and a bench. Ginger sat down and sighed again. This was the two hundred seventeenth audition that she had been to and turned away from.

Ginger felt her eyes swell and her shoulders shake and her bottom lip quiver before spilling into a flood of tears.

"Why can't I get a gig!" Ginger wailed to the empty space around her. She pulled out a hanky and blew her nose. "I remember when I could at least get on the chorus line."

Ginger's brain flashed back to a time when she was still living. Ginger, back then, was a short blonde with a large smile and big blue eyes. Her past self raced down the back hall of the theatre in her tailed-tux dancing outfit until she stopped at the edge of the theatre curtains.

_"Don't mess up Ginger"_ An uppity voice whispered in Ginger's ear. Ginger turned and glared at the red head who had moved behind her. Mary Flubbert had always been there. She had been in Ginger's dance classes and high school.

_"Ain't no way I'll mess this up"_ Ginger replied.

_"Number 22!"_ A gruff voice called. Ginger smoothed the number that was scrawled on a small piece of paper that was attached to her shoulder and made her way out to the stage. _"Are you serious! You're number 22! Yer a little short aren't ya, kid?"_

_"Just cause I'm short doesn't mean I can't do it"_ Ginger said to the man in the theatre seats. The man waved his hand for her to start.

Ginger struck her beginning pose and waited for the music to start. When the notes began, Ginger started to move her hips and finally went into her dance routine. Ginger moved across the stage to the left, then to the right. She twirled and tapped…then felt something underfoot before landing on her face.

_"Next!"_ The man from the seats yelled. Ginger pushed herself up.

_"What? Hey! Don't you want me to finish?"_ Ginger asked. Ginger picked up the baton that had made her trip and glared at Mary. Her batons always had her initials on them, just like this one.

_"Honey, I don't care if you finish or not, yer too short for my chorus"_ The gruff man said with a shuffle of papers. _"Next! Number 23!"_

Ginger slumped her shoulders and walked off of the stage. She thrust Mary's baton into Mary's hands and kept walking.

_"Nice going, Ging!"_ Mary called in a sing-song voice. Ginger stopped mid-step and turned to look at Mary. Ginger stuck out her bottom lip and kept moving towards the exit.

Ginger sighed and got up from the bench. She made her way towards the Roadhouse, which was a whopping three mile hike. Her tears had dried and she just had the remaining feeling of sticky bitterness in her stomach. Her mind continued its raging memories.

Ginger had her blonde hair tied back and was wearing a dull brown trench coat. She juggled four bags of groceries while trying to unlock her apartment door. She managed to get the key in the door just as her groceries spilled from her arms.

_"Ooh"_ Ginger moaned. She knelt down and started picking up the various cans and fruit. _"Bad audition, spilled groceries…What next? A fire? A flood!"_

Ginger stopped when she heard a noise from her apartment. She reached for her doorknob right as the door opened. A handsome man stuck his head out.

_"Frankie!"_ Ginger said with a gasp. _"Ya scared me. For a second I thought you were a burglar or something."_

_"I was…taking a nap"_ Frankie said with a small smile. He looked at the spilled groceries. _"When you pick those up, will you make me a sandwich?"_

_"Sure"_ Ginger said with a smile. Frankie smirked and shut the apartment door.

Ginger stuck her bottom lip out and continued her walk.

Ginger was doing laundry. She was separating a large basket of laundry into whites and colors. She pulled out a shirt that was obviously Frankie's. Ginger's face contorted so she could better examine a color that was sticking out from the ordinary white collar.

_"That ain't my shade of red"_ Ginger said. She ran a finger over the stain, hoping it wasn't lipstick as her mind was telling her. Ginger's eyes welled up with tears and she cried into the shirt.

Ginger's mind flashed an older scene from her high school prom. Ginger was walking down the school hallway, looking for someone. Ginger smoothed out her poofy purple dress and continued walking. She stopped at a connecting hallway and found Mary making out with her prom date.

Ginger remembered the shrill cry that she had let loose that night and shivered. Mary had always ruined everything. High school, dance class, auditions…her marriage.

"Why was I so blind to it all back then?" Ginger wailed. She trudged on. She could almost see the Roadhouse from where she was.

Ginger's mind sped to her last audition that she ever had while living. It hadn't been that long from the lipstick incident with Frankie's laundry. Ginger had grown more and more upset and depressed. When she had confronted Frankie about it, he refused to acknowledge anything about it. Ginger had snooped around after that. She found a phone number and a few pictures that featured none other then Mary.

Ginger waited in line with the rest of the dancers who were waiting for their audition to come up. Ginger heard the familiar footsteps behind her.

_"Mary"_ Ginger seethed. She turned around to see a grinning Mary behind her. _"I thought I smelled a certain funk in the air."_

_"I believe that's your perfume, dear"_ Mary said while straightening her red gloves. Ginger was turning red in the face. _"Have you heard the good news, Ging? I'm going to get married."_

_"To who? The devil?"_ Ginger asked through clenched teeth. Mary detached the end of her baton, revealing a slim knife before plunging it into Ginger's stomach and moving in so it looked like a hug.

_"Actually, Frankie and I knew you'd just die over the news"_ Mary said in Ginger's ear. Mary plunged the knife into Ginger's stomach for a second time before sheathing the knife back in the baton. A distant voice called out Ginger's name. _"You'd better hurry, Ging. It's your turn."_

Ginger was speechless and was running on auto-pilot. She stumbled out onto the stage, hoping someone would notice the blood.

_"Start already!"_ A voice said from the dark seats before her. Ginger started her routine without any sort of grace and finally collapsed. _"You call that dancing! More like how a spider with tap shoes fumbles!"_

Ginger stood before the Roadhouse and pouted some more. She opened the mailbox and pulled out an envelope. She pushed the memories from her mind and opened her letter. A smile graced Ginger's face.

The letter read that she had been accepted into the chorus line of a small cabaret show. Ginger couldn't help but feel that perhaps Mary had done her a favor.

End.


End file.
